Analysis of maternal effect genes from maternal mRNA in eggs of .

To understand how many kinds of mRNAs in female adults can be transferred into the eggs and the molecular basis of embryonic axis specification in we performed de novo transcriptome sequencing of six cDNA libraries of female adults and unfertilized eggs. Total 60,306 unigenes were obtained, with an average length of 1114.51 bp and N50 length of 2112 bp. Total 2900 differentially expressed genes with 496 upregulated and 2404 downregulated were found in unfertilized egg compared to female adult. Most of mRNAs in female adult could be passed into its eggs. Total 65 maternal effect genes were identified, including many homologous genes involved in embryonic axis specialization of . This study provide transcriptome resources to elucidate the functions of maternal effect genes and the molecular basis of embryonic axis specification in in the future.